Pacific Overtures

So I just finished listening to the original cast album and to my surprise I found that I liked it quite a bit. I particularly like the songs There is No Other Way and Pretty Lady. This brings the number of Sondheim scores I really like up to 3. Would anybody care to comment on the original production or any subsequent revivals to describe how good the show is? Thanks.

Sadly I've never seen it live but I love the score to pieces. I have seen the OBC video though (which you should definitely look up on YouTube if you haven't already) and the original production seems to have been stunning, though the book scenes drag for me and the second act is kind of just a bunch of stuff.

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Updated On: 1/31/15 at 07:14 PM

Perhaps the production obscured the book. Although it was no thriller, I found every scene riveting at the Promenade. I'm sure it helped to see faces clearly in order to keep the characters straight.

I love this show to pieces.

It is weird. And beautiful and daring.

As someone mentioned the original Broadway production is on youtube.

Chrysanthemum Tea is one of those really great songs that isn't widely covered and generally not discussed, but it is a gem in a score of riches.

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Updated On: 1/31/15 at 08:47 PM

It was a heavy-handed, pretentious bore. What a trial to sit through! The poor audience really took it on the chin with that one.

Someone in a Tree was particularly irritating as an example of endless, repetitive self-indulgence.

The rest of the score was wan, pallid, enervated and enervating.

The design was the only good thing about it.

Pacific Overtures - The Complete Original Production

Thanks After Eight! It's really helpful to have someone who has met every person who has seen every Broadway show so we can know how much of a trial it was for each and every one of them to sit through Pacific Overtures! And "Someone In A Tree" is one of the best songs written in theatre - EVER.

Anyways, the score is ravishing. Sondheim is incredible at making his scores transport you to another place and time. "Please Hello" is pure magic, as is the thrilling staging of "A Bowler Hat". And if you've heard the original "Chrysanthemum Tea", you understand just how brilliant the final version is.

This brings me to one of the things I find most interesting in theatre. Clive Barnes was a reviewer at The New York Times during the runs of "Company", 'Follies", "A Little Night Music", and "Pacific Overtures". His review for "Company" was actually very good for saying he didn't like it. He repeatedly said how much he thought others would love it and how it deserved to win the Tony Award for best musical. His "Follies" review is much more critical, dispite him saying that he liked it more than "Company. However, "A Little Night Music" received a rave. Clive had said that he believed Sondheim was the best Lyricist in theatre, but "Night Music" made him up it to best composer. He raved over the "orgy of waltzes" and the class and sophistication of the operetta. Then, his review for "Pacific Overtures" came out. I personally find "Pacific Overtures" a much harder work to get into than "Company" and "Follies" - and even my close friends who adore Sondheim, do not appreciate the show. Clive Barnes, however, found it extraordinarily ambitious and gave it a very good review - he felt the score was fantastic, but believed the book to be lackluster and the ending to be from another show. This is interesting in that it seems his love of "Night Music" opened his mind to Sondheim's other shows, and allowed him to fully appreciate them. Would you expect someone how rather disliked "Company" and "Follies" to proclaim "Passion" as "Just plain wonderful. This is the most thrilling piece of theatre on Broadway."? That's what I adore about Sondheim - he writes such different pieces that allow different people to discover his works. It's amazing that this man composed "Company", "Sunday In the Park With George", Into the Woods", and "Passion", when they each seem like pieces different teams would adapt.

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One of my absolutely favorite Sondheim scores. Nearly every number is like a mini play unto itself. And it's quite astonishing to think that such an odd, daring and authentically cast musical was produced on such a scale on Broadway. This would never happen today. Never. What an incredible stretch Sondheim and Prince had in the 70s.

Did any of the original cast go on to have enduring careers in the theatre?

"Sondheim's minimalist music"

"Complex lyrics"

Ha, ha, ha. We now can add two more words to the list of coded theatre terms.

Minimalist=. Minimal pleasure!

Complex= Strained, self-indulgent, and self-congratulatory.


And yet two more! This thread alone could provide enough of them to fill an entire dictionary!

"odd, daring."

Odd= Audience, beware. You are in for it.

Daring= Audience, double beware. You are REALLY in for it!

Updated On: 2/1/15 at 07:30 AM

I love this show's score, and I love what the book is trying to do but I think it needs to be either more grounded or more abstract. The original production reminds me a bit of Cabaret - trying to do something sort of daring and new but still struggling to get out from under the trappings of traditional musical stylings. It'd be great to see a new, vivid production with really sharp, precise staging and lighting, it seems like it needs to be as lean as possible to really get its teeth into the audience and make its two-pronged cultural indictments work.

Amazing score, anyhow. Someone in a Tree is the obvious classic (I'd love to hear it live someday with a nice big orchestra) but the dark comedy numbers are just killer.

I think the music is some of Sondheim's most gorgeous. The filmed for NHK production is on youtube in a pretty good copy and I think the show holds up remarkably well. A gorgeous production of a moving show even though I find the second act doesn't work as well as the first.

"Broadway audiences of that era just weren't ready for PACIFIC OVERTURES"

Broadway audiences of all eras reject bad shows.

Isn't it funny how in all these threads about these megabomb bores, the voices of the vast general public --- save with perhaps one exception --- are never heard?

The unknowing would think that these were all masterpieces from start to finish, and that everyone in the audience was enraptured by every word and note.

If only they knew!

Updated On: 2/1/15 at 05:24 PM

"Diff'rent strokes "

You'd never know that here.

"Your dramatic reiterations of the multitudes staggering aghast out of Sondheim shows never fail to amuse me."

The audiences didn't seem similarly amused.

Updated On: 2/1/15 at 05:55 PM